Flow-Based Events
Kanban in a Scrum context does not require any additional events to those outlined in The Scrum Guide. However, using a flow-based perspective and metrics in Scrum’s events strengthens Scrum’s empirical approach.
The Sprint
The Kanban complementary practices don’t invalidate the need for Scrum’s Sprint. The Sprint and its events provide opportunities for inspection and adaptation of both product and process. It’s a common misconception that teams can only deliver value once per Sprint. In fact, they must deliver value at least once per Sprint. Teams using Scrum with Kanban use the Sprint and its events as a feedback improvement loop by collaboratively inspecting and adapting their Definition of Workflow and flow metrics.
Kanban practices can help Scrum Teams improve flow and create an environment where decisions are made just-in-time throughout the Sprint based on inspection and adaptation. In this environment, Scrum Teams rely on the Sprint Goal and close collaboration within the Scrum Team to optimize the value delivered in the Sprint
Sprint Planning
A flow-based Sprint Planning meeting uses flow metrics as an aid for developing the Sprint Backlog. Reviewing historical throughput can help a Scrum Team understand their capacity for the next Sprint.
Daily Scrum
A flow-based Daily Scrum focuses the Developers on doing everything they can to maintain consistent flow. While the goal of the Daily Scrum remains the same as outlined in The Scrum Guide, the meeting itself takes place around the Kanban board and focuses on where flow is lacking and on what actions the Developers can take to get it back.
Additional things to consider during a flow-based Daily Scrum include the following:
- What work items are blocked and what can be done to get them unblocked?
- What work is flowing slower than expected? What is the Work Item Age of each item in progress? What work items have violated or are about to violate their SLE and what can the Scrum Team do to get that work completed?
- Are there any factors not represented on the board that may impact our ability to complete work today?
- Have we learned anything new that might change what the Scrum Team has planned to work on next?
- Have we broken our WIP limit? And what can we do to ensure we can complete the work in progress?
Sprint Review
The Scrum Guide provides an outline of the Sprint Review. Inspecting Kanban flow metrics as part of the review can create opportunities for new conversations about monitoring progress towards the Product Goal. Reviewing Throughput can provide additional information when the Product Owner discusses likely delivery dates.
Sprint Retrospective
A flow-based Sprint Retrospective adds the inspection of flow metrics and analytics to help determine what improvements the Scrum Team can make to its processes. The Scrum Team using Kanban also inspects and adapts the Definition of Workflow to optimize the flow in the next Sprint. Using a cumulative flow diagram to visualize a Scrum Team’s WIP, approximate average Cycle Time and average Throughput can be valuable.
In addition to the Sprint Retrospective, the Scrum Team should consider taking advantage of process inspection and adaptation opportunities as they emerge throughout the Sprint.
Similarly, changes to a Scrum Team’s Definition of Workflow may happen at any time. Because these changes will have a material impact on how the Scrum Team performs, changes made during the regular cadence provided by the Sprint Retrospective event will reduce complexity and improve focus, commitment and transparency.
Increment
Scrum requires the team to create (at minimum) a valuable, useful Increment every Sprint. Scrum’s empiricism encourages the creation of multiple valuable increments during the Sprint to enable fast inspect and adapt feedback loops. Kanban helps manage the flow of these feedback loops more explicitly and allows the Scrum Team to identify bottlenecks, constraints, and impediments to enable this faster, more continuous delivery of value.
Endnote
Scrum is not a process or technique. It is a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value. As The Scrum Guide points out, it functions well as a container for other techniques, methodologies, and practices.
The flow optimization practices of Kanban provide Scrum Teams with additional opportunities to inspect the right thing, at the right time, and then based on that inspection, adapt as needed. Kanban's hyperfocus on transparency, visualization, and flow maximizes feedback, empiricism, and ultimately the delivery of value.
History and Acknowledgments
Kanban’s use in the context of creative knowledge work mostly originated in 2006 on a team at Corbis, a media licensing company in Seattle. Those practices quickly spread to encompass a large and diverse international community that over the years continued to enhance and evolve the approach.
This guide was developed collaboratively by Scrum.org, its Professional Scrum Trainer Community, Steve Porter, Yuval Yeret, and Daniel Vacanti.
A special thank you to Glaudia Califano, Louis-Philippe Carignan, Charles Bradley, Jose Casal, Andy Hiles, Jesse Houwing, and Julia Wester for their contributions. We also owe a debt of gratitude to all those practitioners who have in the past contributed to make Kanban a viable and successful lean-agile strategy.
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